Legalized Theft

$500. For a key.

I just received word from my local Ford dealership on the cost of a new key for my vehicle.

A little background first. I have a car that uses one of those nifty little keys that houses a computer chip. When we bought the vehicle from a dealership, there was only one key. We were told it would be $100 for another key. They have to reprogram an entirely new key. But the good news is you get two keys. Wow. We decided to hold onto the one key, and for several years we have not lost the one key that works in the vehicle.

Lo and behold, this past week, the car stopped cranking. The engine will turn over, but that’s all. Plenty of battery power, just not catching. After two days of fooling with it (I’m not the most mechanically inclined on the block), I finally caved in and called our local repair place to come tow it in.

I wound up paying $150 to find out the car no longer recognizes the key’s computer chip. Now we have to have it reprogrammed. I had it towed to the nearest Ford dealership, who told me that worst case I might have to have a transceiver replaced. I asked for the bottom line price for the worst case scenario and was told an additional $40. Wow, okay, I was amazed that I might get out of this for under $200 total. $100 for the key and maybe another $40 if the transceiver is bad. I actually felt pretty good.

I just received a call from the robber….er….dealership. Yes, the transceiver is bad, he said, sowe’relookingat$340fortherepair. Excuse me, I said, could you say that just a bit slower? How much?

Three Hundred and Forty Dollars. Now, I was always pretty good at math, but for the life of me, I could not add 100 and 40 and make it come out to 340. After questioning, it would appear the nice man who answered all my questions the other day left out the tiny small insignificant matter of $200 in labor, even though I asked him for the bottom line price.

$500. To fix a key. That has nothing wrong with it.

And they want to tell me that these keys with computer chips are a good thing? Have they cut down on car theft at all? Not that I’ve noticed.

In case you wonder why I cringe every time I am forced to go to a dealership for service, now you know. I would not voluntarily go there for service on a bet. Dealerships steal from people, plain and simple. They can charge whatever they want, due to proprietary concerns. What am I going to do? There is not another place anywhere that can solve my problem – a problem that was caused by Ford intentionally putting in expensive technology that does nothing except drive their bottom line and ensures that only they can fix it.

$500. For a key.

Ridiculous.